The Great GenCon Plot – GenCon 2003 Demo

The first scene of this demo opened knowing nothing more about the story than it would take place at GenCon2003 on Saturday. It began in the dealer room with an 11 year old boy having just purchased an old boxed Avalon Hill game from Crazy Igors. After the boy leaves, a man in black Vampire costume and sunglasses approaches the booth and surreptitiously inquires of Igor himself for a particular game that was supposed to be held for him. The very same game sold accidentally to the boy not moments before…dun, dun, daaaa

Meanwhile the boy was lost. People kept bumping into him as if he wasn’t even there and no one he asked for directions paid any attention to him at all. It was as if he was completely invisible. He clutched his game purchase tighter and began frantically searching for a way out of the hall. But the hall was laid out like a maze and there was no possibility of actually navigating the isles without a map and compass.

The man in black saw the boy and went after him, grabbing for the game. The boy, realizing the man was trying to steal his game, tried to escape but no one could see him struggle. No one that is except Lydia, the blue fairy girl with her chain mail bikini, wings, and large glittery butterfly glasses. You see somehow the boy had been rendered invisible to everyone except those wearing costume eyewear

Lydia got the boy away from the goth wannabe and tried to lead him safely out of the hall, but before she could she was accosted by Sailor Bubba. Sailor Bubba, a large hairy man with a sizeable beer gut straining against his Sailor Moon costume thought Lydia was all that and wanted to “admire her costume up close”. Before Lydia could extricate herself from his sweaty clutches the boy had disappeared.

At this point the scene shifts to a dark back room at Jillians where that evil cabal known as the Diana Jones Award Committee were holding a secret meeting. There we see Ron Edwards, part time Sorcerer / full time Cult leader; Matt Forbeck, breeder of his own private army of future game designers; Peter Adkinson, corporate mastermind who single-handedly managed to figure out how to keep overcrowding down at the con by trapping most of the attendees in line outside; and newly initiated member Jordan Weisman, creator of an army of mutant clix that have been sold around the world and are even now waiting to be activated.

They are plotting to take over the world.

Unfortunately for them, the secret plans outlining their nefarious plot have been stolen by agents of the Origins Awards and secretly hidden in an old Avalon Hill game to be picked up by their vampire agent. They had thought this would be a safe hiding place since “no one plays those musty old war game things anymore”. They equipped the box with an invisibility device that would activate once the box was sold so that their agent could escape unmolested.

But their efforts were thwarted by a young 11 year old boy who had seen the light. This boy, this miraculous boy, has cast aside collectable cards, over priced and over sized minis, and rubber clicky things. He has scorned cheap games that come in paper envelopes, and games from foreign lands whose rules have nothing whatsoever to do with the picture on the box. He refuses to have any association with pale poorly dressed people who run around with crossed arms shouting “you can’t see me, you can’t see me”. He has seen the true roots of gaming holiness…hexes and cardboard counters. Perhaps if he can escape the clutches of his pursuers with his prize he will single handedly save gaming and usher in a new generation of real gamers…

But wait, one of the many hooded and deceitful members of the Cult of Ron has reported that the box and boy were last scene with blue-chainmail-fairy-chick and she has been located. Already Diana Jones operatives are moving into position to intercept her.

“Excellent” says Herr Professor Edwards, his fingers steepled and his trademark evil grin upon his face. “Everything is proceeding as Ihave foreseen”

Meanwhile in the elevator lobby of the Westin hotel Lydia waits to return to her room. Suddenly a faint clicking sound is heard. The sound grows louder and more numerous until the air is filled with the sound of a million clicking beetles.

They aren’t beetles! Its a horde of mutant clicks. They crawl, walk, and even fly, swarming around Lydia and poking her with their little rubber swords and punching her with their little rubber fists. Lydia tries to defend herself, frantically grabbing them one by one and twisting them till they show triple skulls…but there are far too many points in this army.

Suddenly, a hulking shape looms out of the shadows. Its Sailor Bubba! Trying to work up the courage to ask blue-chainmail-fairy-chick for a date, he arrived just in time. Running at a full sprint (just about the speed of an 80 year old man with a walker) Sailor Bubba heaves his bulk into the air. As a high jump, he might have cleared a two foot bar…but fortunately Clix aren’t that tall. With a mighty belly flop…the splat of which reverberates around the lobby, Bubba crushes hundreds of Clix at a time. Rolling about on the floor like some sort of break dancing manatee in a pleated skirt, he demolishes the Clix horde giving Lydia time to make her escape.

What will happen now? Will Lydia save the boy? Will the boy escape to realize his destiny of bringing back true gaming to the masses? Will the corporate shills of the Origins Award Committee succeed in thwarting the plans of their Diana Jones rivals? Will the evil master minds of Diana Jones succeed in taking over the world, unleashing cosmic destruction? Will we ever find out who this Diana Jones person is anyway?

Who knows. Shortly thereafter this demo was shut down by agents of evil and all participants were hauled off to some empty foreclosed Wizards-Attic warehouse where even now they are undergoing unspeakable tortures involving thousands of Break Keys. Only I escaped to bring you this warning.